


Birds

by Elfy (elfowlgirl)



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 06:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6040939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfowlgirl/pseuds/Elfy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a distant wood, there is a young girl. Oneshot. (originally posted to Tumblr on June 29, 2015)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds

Her first memory is that of trees.

Distant, tall, twisting pillars of aging brown and timid red and vibrant, verdant green that stretch so far into the sky that she doesn’t know there’s anything beyond it for her first few summers. For so many moons, all she knows is forest, leaves that shake in the wind in the same way her hair does in the breeze. Roots that tangle up in bushes and briars and each other and entwine so tightly around her heart whenever she stops to think, for even a moment, that all this world is hers to experience.

She learns quickly to tell a bluebird’s call from a jay’s, the signs of dawn’s weather on a coming dusk’s sky, which clouds promise rain and which promise destruction, huddled with Father in their own little slice of home and waiting for the wailing, the crying of the wind-lashed trees, to eventually die.

Vines and low-hanging branches are her favorite. She wraps one hand around them and scurries her way up to the canopy, and then she can see the entire woods of her home and beyond. So sure is she at its peak that if a wind were just to come, a strong enough wind, she could ride it into the sky and into the world beyond.

 _A kingdom_ , she thinks to herself, and even though she calls it hers, she knows she has no right to it. She is as much a resident of the kingdom as the biggest oak, _her_ oak, or the tiniest spider weaving its delicate web between two twigs.

Past their home is a town, she hears, and a city. That there are forests even bigger than hers, people more numerous, and a sea. A great water that stretches so far past the skyline that the edge can no longer be seen.

All she knows is her forest, her Father, and the small pond she dares not going swimming in because there are _leeches_ and even if she’s still little yet, she’s not _stupid_.

Eventually, she begins to experience more. People come by, sometimes, though she’s always certain to make herself scarce at the first sharp bird call that announces their arrival. Some old, some young, but she always knows what they’re there for, carrying baskets of food and trinkets and smiling insincere smiles. That night Father might make a more intricate meal, or share a new toy, but she knows where they come from and she can’t always trust the People Beyond the Woods; the way they hold themselves, the way they look at her on the rare occasion they get a glance, unspoken pleas and promises already waiting on their lips like the emptiness of a snail’s forgotten shell.

The only bright side to their invasion of her woods, she discovers one cold winter evening, is _books_. The bewildering tales engraved in the pages, some so fantastical as to be impossible and some so intricate they couldn’t _not_ be. They tell of cities and magic, oceans and mountains, of a time long, long ago, or of a forest just like hers and a Father just like hers, too. The days she doesn’t race a squirrel to the treetops she spends curled up like one, reading and rereading her favorite comedies and tragedies and romances and _adventures_.

One morning, she realizes that she wants to see beyond her forest. That she wants to meet the ocean, and the mountains, and even just see the town that she knows is there if she follows the path from her oak to the horizon and beyond.

They haunt her mind, thoughts of one day picking up her own sword like the fierce warriors and daring princes in her books - something to protect her from the People Beyond the Woods and the dragons and monsters that are the villains of every tale.

She’s so preoccupied with her fantasies - though how she could leave Father behind she’s still not quite sure - that, one day, for the first time in her entire life, she slips on a branch. She’s already halfway to reaching for the next one when the world suddenly drops out from under her, that all the brown and green she finds so comforting swirl together in a mass of confusion and panic before cutting away to black.

The wind roars in her ears, louder than a storm, and she wonders if it’s arrived already, the taste of the coming rain on the breeze. Time seems to slow, each branch cracking like thunder, pain overwhelming her, that she doesn’t realize that she’s hit the ground and that what she hears is real thunder until she sees a muffled flash of brilliant light through closed eyes.

She’s not sure if what’s on her skin, wet and hot and heavy, is rain or blood. She can’t even regain her bearings and register if she landed up or down or sideways before she’s pulled tight and close to something warm, words echoing distantly in a familiar tone.

Gently, carefully, everything dulls, if only slightly. Something soft appears beneath her, though it does nothing to stop the pain she can feel flowing through her with each shaky breath. Her hand is placed against the same wet substance, and Father’s voice finally catches inside her ears.

She doesn’t remember what he said, just blindly doing what she was told, hoping for _something_ , anything, to make the agony _stop_.

All she remembers is the same light, like lightning, and an unusual warmth at her fingertips.

Ashe doesn’t go climbing anymore. Her world feels ever so smaller, the treetops looming above her with half-imagined menace. Twisting and wavering bars of an unfaltering cage, her wings once spread so wide now crippled and broken. She can’t bring herself to go beyond the lowest branch, as much as she misses her freedom.

“Healing”, Father had called it. “The power just beneath.” Whatever she’d done was supposed to keep away the pain, undo the wounds, make her feel better.

Instead, all it did was make her feel empty. She was left as a bird with clipped wings, in a world made entirely of sky.

**Author's Note:**

> I later got Faust to read this: http://elfowlgirl.tumblr.com/post/127684904538/i-asked-faust-to-read-birds-so-here-it-is


End file.
